White House to Appeal Texas Order Blocking Immigration Moves
White House to Appeal Texas Order Blocking Immigration Moves
by Heidi PrzybylaToluse Olorunnipa
4:30 AM PST February 17, 2015
Obama vs. U.S. District Court Judge on Immigration
(Bloomberg) -- The White House plans to appeal a Texas judge’s order blocking President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration that sought to protect about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The order on Monday by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, temporarily halts the administration from carrying out the policies Obama announced after the November elections. Hanen’s order found that Texas, which sued the administration along with 25 states, had satisfied the requirements to bring a lawsuit.
The judge blocked the administration from carrying out Obama’s directives while the legal battle plays out. The ruling was issued amid a standoff in Congress between Republicans, who seek to use a Department of Homeland Security spending bill to reverse Obama’s orders, and Democrats who have maintained a united front against that move.
The agency would face a shutdown of non-essential operations if Congress doesn’t agree on a spending bill before funding ends Feb. 27.
“The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C., have determined that the president’s actions are well within his legal authority,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. “The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect.”
Bolstering Fight
Republicans said the ruling bolstered their fight to undo Obama’s actions.
The ruling “reinforces what I and many others have been saying for a long time: that President Obama acted outside the law when he went around Congress to unilaterally change our nation’s immigration laws,” U.S. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said in a statement. He added that “the fight to reverse the president’s unconstitutional overreach is not over.”
Democrats said the ruling was unlikely to change their position. “We may be delayed, but we will not be deterred,” said Illinois Representative Luis Gutierrez. “In our neighborhoods, this is about defending families and making sure that children who are U.S. citizens grow up with their parents.”
Congress has for years been unable to agree on a revised law to address an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The House has refused to take up a bipartisan measure passed by the Senate in 2013 that would create a path to citizenship for many of those immigrants.
Deporting Criminals
Obama has said he was acting on immigration because of Congress’s failure to pass legislation. He said in November he would focus Homeland Security agency resources on deporting violent criminals while protecting other undocumented immigrants from deportation.
His action would allow undocumented parents of U.S. citizens to apply for work authorization under a “deferred action” plan that would also spare them from deportation.
The first part of Obama’s action, an expansion of a 2012 program protecting children from deportation, was set to go into effect Wednesday.
The judge’s ruling means those under the age of 16 who arrived on or before January 2010 won’t be able to apply for the program, said David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Yet, the ruling has little effect on actual deportations, he said.
“None of this has to do with starting or stopping deportations,” Leopold said. “They were already using all of the resources available in deporting as many people per year.”
Minor Blow
Immigration advocates cast the ruling as a minor blow because the White House was careful to legally vet the policy.
“This ruling -- issued by a lone, out-of-touch judge, singularly sought out by extremist Republican governors and attorneys general -- is a temporary disappointment, but in no way a permanent setback,” said Rocio Saenz, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union.
Hanen has previously criticized the Obama administration for turning “a blind eye to criminal conduct.”
The judge said in his 123-page ruling that the states are “concerned about their own resources being drained by the constant influx of illegal immigrants into their respective territories, and that this continual flow of illegal immigration has led and will lead to serious domestic security issues directly affecting their citizenry.”
Republicans may use the decision to pressure a handful of Senate Democrats, including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, to join them when Congress returns next week to advance the Homeland Security spending bill that would block the immigration orders. Obama has said he would veto any legislation reversing his directives.
Three Votes
The Senate has voted three times and failed to advance the House-passed bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled another vote for Feb. 23, when Congress returns from a one-week recess.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement that “Senate Democrats -- especially those who’ve voiced opposition to the president’s executive overreach -- should end their partisan filibuster of Department of Homeland Security funding.”
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement, “Every president since Eisenhower has used his authority to refine our immigration system in service of our national interest.”
Over the weekend, tensions between Democrats and Republicans intensified as House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said on the “Fox News Sunday” program that he’s prepared to let homeland security funding lapse if the Senate doesn’t act on the House bill.
Defuse Standoff?
One Republican, Representative John Carter of Texas, who in the past has tried to craft a bipartisan compromise to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, said the ruling could also help defuse the standoff.
Some rank-and-file Republicans have said Congress could pass a short-term bill to fund the department while the case is appealed, said Carter.
“Judge Hanen’s decision rightly stops the president’s overreach in its tracks,” said Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott in a statement. “The District Court’s ruling is very clear -- it prevents the president from implementing the policies in ’any and all aspects.’”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the judge’s order “makes it clear that the president is not a law unto himself, and must work with our elected leaders in Congress and satisfy the courts in a fashion our founding fathers envisioned.”
The case is State of Texas, v. United States of America, 14-cv-00254, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Brownsville).
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...judge-in-texas
